Keith Fleming

The Boy with the Thorn in his Side

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October 5, 2000 9:07PM (UTC)

Keith Fleming was sixteen years-old when his Uncle Ed, acclaimed novelist, biographer and cultural critic Edmund White adopted him and allowed him to move into his Upper West Side apartment. In his first book, a memoir called "The Boy with the Thorn in his Side," Fleming calls this period "the defining moment in my life." He focuses on this adolescence and his relationship with White, and in effect, details his transformation from suburban family member to teenage psychiatric ward patient.

According to the New York Times, "We get Fleming's postadolescent earnestness and his ever-so-American conviction that life is about moving onward and upward as best you can."

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Listen to this exclusive MP3Lit recording of Keith Fleming reading from his memoir.